Interactive Spectral Interpretation System

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The Interactive Spectral Interpretation System is analysis software that allows you to evaluate X-ray spectra as they occur in X-ray astronomy . These spectra can e.g. B. be recorded by accreting neutron stars or black holes by means of detectors in space.

Since the sensitivity of these detectors depends on the energy of the incoming radiation and they are constantly exposed to the strong cosmic rays , this must be taken into account when analyzing and interpreting the data, for which ISIS provides special functions. The spectra, which are usually available in FITS format, are also loaded via internal functions so that these technical steps are relieved of the user. There is also the option of comparing the loaded spectra with predefined physical models.

ISIS itself is based on the S-Lang script language . This allows the user to write his own functions very comfortably, for example to write his own routines for loading data or modeling spectra. In addition, a few commands are usually sufficient to output the data and the model to be compared in graphical form or to save them in files. For this, ISIS uses the open graphics library PGPLOT .

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